It was a weekend like any other weekend, when I am helping someone in the JPop music industry and I send her concert video to a friend in America to look at .Unlike any other weekend my friend said “her video is blocked”. A concert that we are involved In helping her be showcased to the international idol world is suddenly without warning blocked in my friend’s home country.
Over the next few hours I received messages telling me that other well-known Japanese music groups , record labels , video reaction videos ,dance and vocal covers ,even Independent idol groups covering an AKB48 song in their concert to about 100 people was blocked.

At first I thought it was another twist in a backwards music industry trying to completely isolate our music artists to be domestic only.
That was until I discovered something called YouTube Red. YouTube Red, staff claims it sent notices to music companies 6 months ago, yet not me or any other friends in other idol music agencies had even heard of it. In fact I spent most of three days explaining to managers ,producers and even idols in various Independent Idol music agencies what it was as best as I understood it. I even mentioned it to a friend that works with Ebichu, seems no one knew of YouTube Red or that it would shut down your videos if you did not join.

YouTube Red for those just hearing the name is a new Premium service with a monthly fee from YouTube offering several advantages, including ad-free videos, and a number of other user benefits for a membership fee of $9.99 a month and you get videos with no ads, that you were a few days ago watching for free with your ad blocker turned on.

For content creators it means a lot more, the little small print that said “If you do not opt-in to the service your videos would be blocked, made private in the United States and coming soon the world.”

YouTube Red has been created to give its partner creators more income. Partner creators are channels that have reached certain requirements and most major companies fall under this term.

YouTube Red “claims” they have signed 99% of their partner creators ,which is great for them ,however the 1% left out is the Japanese ,Korean entertainment industry and I am sure a few more whose first language is not English and have their own domestic entertainment agreements they must respect.

As this 1% is not a concern for YouTube Red they have simply decided to turn off their ability to market themselves to the United States and if the service works later the rest of the world.

If you ask a YouTube Red supporter they will say “all the company has to do is agree and everybody makes money”. Ask the other side and you get “we had contractual agreements already agreed to”, “or we don`t even know what it is” or in the fans view “YouTube is holding our Idols hostage and if you don`t give them back, we are storming the castle walls.”

Seems no one wants to take fault in JPOP videos being blocked in the United States.

The question here is not who is at fault , but does the Japanese music industry that has been slow to adopt change and accept international fans even fully know the seriousness of this situation or even care?

We hope Japanese music industry will care about the Red issue immediately.
We wanna share same feeling at the same time without any borders!

As I said some people I know didn`t know about it and they currently are so small of agency that their groups are not blocked. But surely the 30 heavy players in our industry know that for days now their videos are being blocked.

Instead JPop companies, are ignoring foreign fan questions and working as business normal inside Japan.

(Just one of many comments or questions on Up-Front English Facebook .Up-Front has English speaking staff )

(Tweets related to Hello!Project Group ANGERME, AKB48 & Alice Project three of the 30 companies blocked by YouTube Red In the United States)

The time has long past that the industry took serious the economic value of gaining an international following. There are some smaller Idol companies trying to do just that because they have seen the fan pool in Japan and there is only so many otaku to bring under your charms.

I often hear from my peers in music, “why promote to foreign Idol fans, when it’s easier to just take safe money from otaku!” or “why do you write in English, when otaku fans are the heart of idol?”

Just because something is easy, doesn`t mean it’s the only option for success. Taking the easy road means you will become half of what you could have been. It means making your artists half of what they could have been.

Ask any small idol how she feels when she learns she has overseas fans. I can tell you everyone I told cries out of happiness. Idols want more than what agencies want and now is the chance for the Japanese music industry to make a change and take their foreign fans serious and take YouTube Red serious. It not enough to say that in Japan we have the second largest music market, one day the otaku might not be there, but the world will.

Foreign Idol fans, if you can afford to market to them, makes a difference. If you think not, just ask BABYMETAL, Just ask their agency Amuse. If YouTube Red is not taken serious by the music industry here in Japan, there might not be a next BABYMETAL type group success.

For the idol community this is the chance to speak up and move videos to Dailymotion and other services, to unite and help those cut off to find the alternative sites the videos are on, to be a voice of change and show the Japanese music industry that they can be just as mad as KPop fans about losing their favorite music groups.

There is no reason for YouTube Red to become the “Great Red Wall Against JPop!”

English Related Tweets from Tokyo Girls` Update Twitter

On twitter I have hash tagged the post YouTube Red and SaveJPop. I hope this is one step in the process of doing that.

Special Thanks post publish & Follow ups

Many people around the world have reached out to me about this or shared the article.
I cannot thank everyone in this setting .two I want to make mention of and thank.

Thanks to everyone public and private who sent messages ,I’ll contact you in other ways.

To clear a point asked in a DM on Facebook
Us small Indie Idol agencies , didn`t know until after the blocks started. Big companies I expect did know. It seems like to me (my opinion ,YTRed is interested in the most revenue drawing channels, not everybody ). I can`t speak for everybody , just myself and those small indie Idol agencies I deal with daily. The gap between us and the Hello!Pro level is huge. I was talking about us small groups & producers like Aphrodite and others just trying to break out level, idol agencies in the shallow pond. I should explained that part better.

I’m a fairly big fan of Alice Project now mainly thanks to this website, and finding their channel blocked hurts me the most. They don’t have a Daily Motion presence at all and YouTube is the only place where I can listen to their music. And recently they seem to be marketing to the english speaking audience by subbing a lot of their videos. I haven’t found a way where I can buy their music in America and now the only way I could ever see them is if I made it to Japan, which probably won’t happen anytime soon. It’s sad that I can’t listen to them or ever see the PVs ever again.

Gaki

Last night I wrote personal private messages to the members of Alice Juban of Kamen Joshi about YT Red.Many others in media & music joined our #SaveJPop push
Happy to report
USA fans sent @Pureidolheart message that Alice Project YT Channel is open again in USAhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbQz_OQgosRnvkPgy-kclrQ
#SaveJPop

Zam

It is unfair to put pressure on the Japanese entertainment industry to resolve the Youtube Red issue when it is Google and Youtube is the culprit behind the blockage.

Also, they way you put it makes it look like America is the only international market for Japanese music. That is not the actual picture. Europe is a bigger market for J-music. I think even South America has a bigger market share. So saying that BABYMETAL’s success was somehow dependent on their exposure in America is a bit too far fetched.

Me, I don’t want Up-Front or any of the other 30 Japanese music companies to bow down to the coorporate bully that is Google. I am affraid that once they sign-up with Youtube Red they will be at Google’s mercy. Who knows what else Google has plans for in the future.

To the American J-music fans, they have to take the issue up with Google. That is the only way to stop a bully.

ElpisGames

When you put it that way, I also don’t want to see the companies just bow down to YouTube red just so its accessible to Americans. But if they didn’t know about it (such as Alice Project presumably not knowing), and didn’t have a major problem with the new contract, I wouldn’t necessarily say its “bowing down to google” per say. I don’t blame the J-Pop industry for not accepting the contracts, its sad that its come down to this though.

This issue has weighed heavily on me over the past weekend. As a blogger and J-pop fan (primarily of Hello! Project), I was greatly concerned about the implications and saw the reactions among the community.

It barely helps that I’ve also been seeing the reaction from content creators who are the most affected by YouTube Red.

I wrote my feelings and observations in a post earlier this week and scheduled it to post later today. I just this morning checked the hashtag #YouTubeRed on Twitter to see where the discussion went and see if it was still relevant. Not only did I find that the mood of the conversation remained the same (if not, got worse), but also found this wonderful read.

I sincerely hope that a resolution can be made and the community (communities even) raise their voices loud enough… and the ears at YouTube listen. After all, YouTube Red exists because we “wanted” its features, right?